Gods and Monsters: The Scientific Method Applied to the Human Condition - Book II Read online

  Chapter 9:

  The Potential Universality, Universality of Knowledge, Universality of Structural Reality Historical and the Universality of the Human Spirit

  Kant stated that what is empirical (or emerging from the experience with the historical reality) possesses a universality related and not absolute, as it happens, instead, with what it is: a priori (1). Had recognized, then, that: only what belongs to human nature possesses true universality, while the structural reality historic possesses a relative universality, namely, limited to historical conditions, or contingents, of the humanity.

  The concept of universal individual of Hegel, imply an infinite number of determinations and variations, and is attributed to an individual absolute, which symbolizes the universality reached in a certain level of manifestation of the being, on the part at a given species, at an given moment. Is equivalent, therefore, at the “universality” of the conscience of his contemporaries, in a given historical moment (2).

  The comparative history had brought Bloch at recognize “the fundamental unity of the human spirit or, if you prefer, monotony, the astounding poverty of intellectual resources referred, in the course of history, humanity has arranged" (3), namely, the unity and repetitiveness, for the different peoples, of human history. Jean Bodin he forsook the Platonic idea of progressive human degeneration and had affirmed the equality between the society “modern” and the society “classical”, and introduced the concept of “solidarity of peoples”, namely, the idea of the uniqueness of human history (4).

  Part III:

  Philosophy of History